Numbers Just a Part of Lewis' Game

Thursday

Jan 3, 2013 at 2:33 AM

We will need a few years for perspective, since we never really know what we've got ‘til it's gone. But it seems to me that a strong case could be made for Ray Lewis being the best defensive player ever to play football.

By DICK SCANLONTHE LEDGER

We will need a few years for perspective, since we never really know what we've got ‘til it's gone. But it seems to me that a strong case could be made for Ray Lewis being the best defensive player ever to play football.

I suppose I'm prejudiced, like most of those who covered Lewis back when he was at Kathleen High School in the early ‘90s. I'm no talent evaluator, and some other people who covered the Red Devils were way ahead of me on this — I had no inkling of what was to come.

Lewis, who announced Wednesday that this will be his final NFL season, did everything at Kathleen, on offense and defense, with great impact. But since he wasn't that big, his future position wasn't altogether clear, as I recall. The only person who knew without reservation that he would be a big-time middle linebacker was Lewis himself. The idea that 20 years later he would be on the top of anyone's list of middle linebackers, ever, that never really registered back then, at least not with me.

Then he went off to the University of Miami and the rest is history. Seventeen NFL seasons, 228 games, First-Team All-NFL seven times, NFL Defensive Player of the Year twice, Super Bowl MVP. And those are just facts and figures. Add them up and they don't really do justice to what Lewis has done in the NFL.

For 17 years, if you asked people to name a Baltimore Ravens player, the answer would be Ray Lewis, who came into the NFL the same year as the Ravens (the year they moved from Cleveland). To the extent it is possible to state this about one player in the ultimate team game, Ray Lewis IS the Baltimore Ravens.

And yes, it is nice that he will have played his whole career with one franchise. Not even Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Emmitt Smith, Brett Favre or Peyton Manning managed to pull that off. Happily, nobody will ever have a photo of Lewis playing out his career in the uniform of the Tennessee Titans or Jacksonville Jaguars.

Sadly, there is a negative image of Lewis that persists, and it tarnishes the highlight of his great career, the Ravens' Super Bowl XXXV championship, won in Tampa on Jan. 28, 2001. Lewis had spent a month in jail that year after being arrested for his involvement in a double murder in Atlanta on the night of Super Bowl XXXIV.

It's pointless to go into the details here, but the case had a huge profile, and I don't know how many times I've heard someone connect the word "murder" or "murderer" with the mention of Lewis' name, even though he was never accused of the murders and certainly never charged with them. The men who were charged were acquitted, and Lewis paid a big fine for obstruction of justice.

The sad part is that outside of Lakeland and Baltimore, the incident has obscured so much of the good and charitable work Lewis has done, some of it in his hometown.

By all accounts, he has been a model citizen ever since, and if his reputation never fully recovered, his football career certainly did. He continued to grow as a leader and a defensive force, and the Ravens have been a playoff contender almost every year.

Injuries finally caught up with him, as they do for virtually every football player. A toe injury kept him out of four games last season, and he has missed the Ravens' last 10 games with a torn right triceps. He will start Sunday's playoff game knowing it might be his last, and nobody had to tell him it was time. His body told him.

Lawrence Taylor is the only defensive player I can think of who had an impact as large and almost as long as that of Ray Lewis. An outside linebacker, Taylor played 13 seasons for the New York Giants. He was an All-Pro nine times and even won an MVP award in 1986.

Lewis never won an MVP, although he was clearly denied the 2000 award because of his off-the-field issues.

I would assert, in fact, that no player has ever been more valuable in any season than Lewis was in 2000. These are my favorite facts about that team: 1) On their way to a Super Bowl title, the Ravens did not score an offensive touchdown in the month of October; and 2) they gave up a total of 23 points in four playoff games, including the Super Bowl.

Only the 1985 Bears had a comparable defense for one season. Lewis wasn't the only reason, but he was the main reason, and then he went out and did it for another decade.

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